Download the following link and read it prior to Week 6.
Like his predecessors and other theorists, e.g., Buckminster Fuller, Heidegger realized the limitations of language to describe the ineffable nature of experience, and frequently coined new words, word-amalgams, or created action-nouns–turning a noun into a verb–to get at the essences of experience. He is among the existential phenomenological thinkers, proponents of a philosophy called Existential Phenomenology, often simply called “phenomenology”, an outgrowth of existentialism. In psychology, this thinking has been adopted by the so-called humanists, countering the idea of strict behaviorism.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
PREPARING WRITTEN NOTES FOR TEXT SEMINAR:
Prepare written notes to bring to seminar, to be handed in to your seminar moderator (Sean and me), at the end of our discussion: EACH OF THE FOUR POINTS REQUIRES WRITING. Each point should progressively build upon the last, e.g., “coming to terms” is short, one word and a clause or phrase to describe, like an outline or debrief. “Forwarding” requires full sentences. Be brief, succinct, and use full sentences with subjects, verbs, adjectives, punctuated, etc. “Countering” requires more thought, and perhaps rhetorical persuasion; what is your point and why should we care?
This is a method of preparing for seminar, designed to allow you to be FULLY PRESENT, specifically in terms of the assigned reading(s). Stay on point!
Use the method, “Re-writing”, below, to prepare for contributing to our seminar discussion about/around Roy Hornsby’s essay: “What Heidegger Means by Being-in-the-World”.
Go through the essay step by step. There are three steps: Coming to Terms, Forwarding, and Countering, as described, below. This is essentially a METHOD of analyzing texts.
PREPARE FOR SEMINAR USING THE FOLLOWING WRITING METHOD:
* “RE-WRITING”
1. “Coming to Terms”: As succinctly as possible lay out Hornsby’s main points. Succinctly describe what the essay is about as if to someone who has no knowledge of it. Use the terms and words that the author uses. DO NOT OFFER YOUR OPINIONS HERE, or the opinions of others. Be faithful to the author’s usage and intent. Cite exact terminology and location in the paper (page #, or in a short work, paragraph #). Obviously in a work like this, there are many terms, hopefully some new to you. Good writing lays its points out in some logical sequence. Look for this pattern, as if writing an outline. Note terminology (and related concepts) that jump out at you. Write a sentence describing what you think the writer (Hornsby) means by each of these key terms/words.
2. “Forwarding”: Forward, as if to an email list-serve. Here, your constituent target audience is the members of “Sacred Movement, Sacred Sound.” Forward points you see as, a) relevant to the program, and, b) useful to your own personal goals and objectives. What “works” in the essay before you? What turns you on? Here you BEGIN to lay out your ideas and opinions about the essay, etc., still being faithful to the author’s thesis, usage, etc. You are selecting aspects of the author’s thinking to suit your own needs, or the interests of your target audience–us, SMSS, and your seminar group. Use the “hot” terms you identify in “Coming to Terms”. Write at least two or three short sentences or phrases that spell out the talking points that interest you, what you’d like to say about them to us in seminar. (Hint: What would you like to hear about these terms from others? You’re preparing to speak to the group, thinking, “This interests me. What do you (the group) think?”
3. “Countering” — Countering isn’t shouting down or the wholesale trashing of an author’s ideas. Countering is expressing ideas and phrasings that strike you as somehow mistaken, troubling, or incomplete. This may require a paragraph or two. Write how and why you disagree with the author, or what you’d add. Hint: what you chose to “forward” is a place to begin, because those points were probably “hot” for you. Be careful to use the author’s terms alongside your own. Don’t go off half-cocked. Think through the limits and problems of other points of view, including, perhaps, your own. You might discover at this point that you need to do some extra, or outside research to bolster your opinions. Your purpose is not to change the author’s usage, which is impossible (the temporal autonomy of the text); your purpose is to express your views on the topic. An effective counter-statement must attend closely to the strengths of the position it is responding to, and thus in many ways depends on representing that position clearly and fairly in order to make full sense. Characteristic of effective countering is “Yes, but…”
4. There is a fourth step, which we’ll address next week, called “Taking an Apporach”, which has to do with finding your own authentic voice, a point I’ll address in Movement Workshop. Taking an approach is finding your own voice, and often translates into finding an effective style, etc.
* The process of re-writing is described in Rewriting: How to do things with texts, by Joseph Harris (2006). It is a book used in Evergreen’s Masters of Education programs.